


Let Me In

by mabrii



Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Not Related, Angst, BAMF T'Challa (Marvel), Black Character(s), Black Male Character, Erik Has Feelings, Erik Killmonger Lives, Erik has Issues, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Jealous Erik Killmonger, Kissing, M/M, Mutual Pining, One True Pairing, Painting, Pining, Protective T'Challa (Marvel), Sketchbook, Smitten Erik, painter T’Challa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 05:52:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15924218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mabrii/pseuds/mabrii
Summary: T’Challa wonders if Erik pays attention to how much information is laid bare for them due to their heightened senses. He must. He wonders how much Erik thinks he’s concealing from him and whether he notices that most times, T’Challa isn’t hiding behind anything at all.





	Let Me In

He seemed deliberate in his control. Stilled, schooled in an effort, Erik thinks, to not let show the raw, aching bits. 

He continues pushing; he wants a reaction. Something, besides T'Challa's shamanic ability to drift out of himself at will. If anything, Erik feels robbed. 

His anger dictated his every move and word in this place; the rein he had on it snapped the moment he left the ancestral plane, confused by the sadness in his father's eyes. He did all of this, made it this far and his father just thought him lost, looked almost disappointed by the fortress of bitterness from which Erik judged Wakanda and T'Challa. He wanted T'Challa's rage to swell to meet his. For a second, lost in thought, he falters in his goading; he knows T’Challa has felt the ripple, the way his anger turned inward to gnaw at his guilt. 

He returns to prowling through the King's personal office; determined to pick his inner sanctum apart, expose that weak softness he knows is there. He picks up another black, hardcover book.  Where he had flicked the first away when his pawing it drew no reaction from T’Challa, handling this one provoked the barest of shifts, so subtle Erik was half sure he imagined the glitch. He eyed him as he palmed the book. It looked well used and well cared for at the same time; the thick off white pages seemed warped. The edges rebelled against the weight of the covers and waved slightly. It wasn’t a printed book, Erik knew that much without opening it.

He did find it amusing that with all that technology, T’Challa still kept an eclectic paper library, none of the titles there for vanity; all of them thumbed and worn from occasional re-reading. This was another maddening similarity between them. At heart they were both academics; bookish and thirsty for what they could be taught. 

He was aware of T'Challa's eyes, suddenly intent, on his face. It's not that he had been avoiding eye contact, but his gaze had been so impassive that being avoided would have been preferable. As it was, almost everything T’Challa did seemed to irritate him; too little attention, too much attention, just enough of anything and Erik wanted to suck the breath from T’Challa’s lungs. It didn’t make sense to him either, that impulse; he didn’t want him dead, he wanted to consume him. 

At the moment, Erik wanted something else from T'Challa. It had been months since they reached this point; drifting between avoiding, challenging and coveting each other. They were at a stalemate lately, drawn together with a fierceness that disturbed them both. A fierceness that had them bravely colliding with each other, then retreating in desperate fear. 

 

“What do you want, Erik?”, T’Challa asks still holding his gaze. 

 

Erik returns his attention to the closed book in his hands, appearing unfazed by what seems like T’Challa’s attempt to divert his snooping. If not for the way his pulse skipped and sped up in anticipation, if not for the way he had to swallow the saliva, tasting of desire, that pooled under his tongue, Erik would have believed his own nonchalance. 

“What’s in this one?”, he says to cover his thick swallow and the way T’Challa’s question made heat simmer in his veins. 

 

“More of my “bullshit”, as you say.” And Erik snorts; he might be rubbing off on him. 

 

“You cool if I open this?” 

 

Erik presses, hoping to see hesitation in T’Challa’s eyes, hoping for an opening that tells him he’s infiltrated some new part of him. 

They’re assessing each other as always. One too gracious, too careful, to push beyond what little give there is. And one too ornery to accept that to have gotten this far, the door must have always been open. T’Challa treats Erik with a tenderness he is isn’t used to, doesn’t think he deserves, one he can’t recognize save for calling it weakness at times and being intimidated by the unspoken in the man’s eyes at others. 

T’Challa wonders if Erik pays attention to how much information is laid bare to them due to their heightened senses. He must. He wonders how much Erik thinks he’s concealing from him and whether he notices that most times, T’Challa isn’t hiding behind anything at all. All Erik need do is truly pay attention. Then he’d hear the way T’Challa’s heartbeat synced with his once he was close, he’d notice the way the hairs on his body stood and aligned themselves with Erik’s presence like blades of grass seeking sunlight. He’d notice if only he were not so focused on seeking more tangible confirmation. Though, it should have been obvious to them both that neither of them possessed as much control as they liked to believe; the vessels they contained themselves in cracked open months before. Now all they did was ooze visceral confusion around each other. 

 

There were moments when T’Challa saw Erik’s remorse over the lives lost and way he almost destroyed the wonder that is Wakanda. No moment was more clear than that time T’Challa, with his hand wrapped unmoving around Erik’s throat, slammed him into the closest wall, eyes depthless and glassy with pain;

“...a child. A child!” He ground out. 

“My little sister, Erik.”, his eyes stung but he never released Erik’s gaze.

“The most brilliant mind this world will see for generations. One of us, Erik.  Had I been 30 seconds later... you. You...would have run her through with your blade.”

Erik’s bravado faltered then. The air of the detached debater was sucked away by a harsh inhale through his parted lips. The mildly sardonic expression he wore when he suggested that all loss in civil conflict was acceptable, dissolved into waves of discomfort that flitted across his features. 

“That mind, that spirit...lost. For your vengeance? For defending her home? Her people? Her legacy? For nothing!” He spat.

Whatever T’Challa expected of Erik in that moment, it was not the way he brought his forehead to touch T’Challa’s lips with a gentle rub, it was not the ragged, whispered “I’m sorry.”, it was not the way his hands unclenched from his sides and wound around his waist, it was not the jagged exhale against his neck or the way he dragged his face over T’Challa’s clothed shoulder to dry his tears. 

“I’m sorry.”

—

 

“It is fine.” He said now, with a barely-there smirk, suddenly made brave by the memory. “Go ahead.” 

Erik palmed the book as if weighing it. He let it fall open in his hand, spreading naturally to the first warped page. It was a simple watercolour painting. In washes of soft, delicate colour and sharp sepia ink lines Erik could see the River Tribe village in early morning light. There was a tangible tenderness in the way it was painted; only love could capture it this way. He contained the soft gasp bubbling up from his chest. Schooled his features into something less open than his fingers tracing the ink lines revealed. 

 

“For real, man?” Erik wanted to scoff but it sounds too soft in his ears to have been mocking. 

 

He wanted to say something more but nothing came. He wanted to raise a sarcastic eyebrow at T’Challa to mask how vulnerable he suddenly felt; T’Challa’s eyes on him, observant as always, as he consumed what he had been hunting for. 

T’Challa offered, “I do them from memory. I find it soothing to remember how beautiful things are when life makes it hard to see.” 

Erik hums and turns the page; he can’t look at T’Challa anymore. 

There is a page of sketches of children, their ritual face paint filled in by vivid ink, their skin warm and breathing on paper; a rich swath of brown tinged with deep cobalt.  Erik can’t think of anything worth saying to T’Challa. His primary impulse to move closer to him alarms him so he rebels against it by turning away.

A candid sketch of Shuri, face upturned, light, that T’Challa has coloured saffron, adorns her cheekbones and shoulders. A paler wash of yellow  around her head glows off the page. This is the golden child of the Golden Tribe. Erik feels guilt stun his heartbeat into momentary silence. 

He turns the page and there is Queen Ramonda, face softer than he’s had the opportunity to see, save for a few times; her heavy gray locs falling over her shoulders like a mantle of wisdom.  More colour and line, more pages still and he sees Okoye’s power come to life on paper, Nakia’s fire consuming every inch of off-white with layers of jewel toned greens. W’Kabi painted with such care that Erik finds himself angered by how easily he turned on T’Challa. 

Another turn and there is M’Baku’s face in 3/4 profile. Shades of deep brown, soft grey and scribbles of white charcoal - each precise, attentive stroke suggesting his strength, wisdom and stubbornness. On the bottom quarter of the page is a small, very detailed, floating sketch of his hands clasped around his knobberie. Something Erik is uncomfortable naming burns in his gut and he is aware that nothing he feels makes sense at times; it’s all raw and untethered.

 

Erik does suck in an audible breath this time. T’Challa has moved closer. But it was the way Erik could stare into the light in his own eyes that made his hands tremble. 

He looked radiant and haunted under T’Challa’s hand. It was a recent depiction; his locs were painted past his jawline in long wet strokes of umber with flecks of deep yellow where he’d threaded bits of gold in months ago. He had never seen himself like this. Never seen himself this intimately, never treated himself with the gentleness he saw in T’Challa’s lines. 

 

Erik knew he was attractive, often used it to his advantage, but this wasn’t an echo of that. This was a beautiful Erik, a creature T’Challa knew the worst of yet painted with such light, such tenderness; the same golden light that shone on Shuri radiated around him on the page. 

 

He swallowed and kept turning. Hunger only stimulated, not nearly sated. A few landscapes and more of himself. His hands shook lightly and he was aware of T’Challa behind him, silent but missing nothing. There was one that he stared at for a few minutes, throat closed around his words, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. In it he looked straight ahead, off the thick page, shadow and light played on his face in strokes of copper, sienna and gold, his eyes embers, mouth set in an unreadable line. Draped across his bare collar bones was the broad, gold panther mantle. In T’Challa’s elegant hand at the bottom of the page were the words, “Yam Yegolide”.

 

Erik stood silent, barely breathing for fear that he would break open if he let too much in or out. T’Challa stepped to his side and took the book from his hands.  Erik sat back on the desk behind him, hands restless on his thighs, still unable to look at T’Challa as he moved to face him. His eyes flutter shut when he feels T’Challa’s big, warm hands still his. 

 

“Mm.” He said, clearing his throat and summoning his belligerence. He finally meets T’Challa’s guileless gaze, lips quirking slightly.

 

“You got a thing for M’Baku’s broad ass, huh? Talkin’ ‘bout he don’t eat meat but big as a fuckin’ house...like how?” 

 

T’Challa is beaming at him by this point. His eyes shining with laughter. 

 

“He is beautiful...but no, not quite.” T’Challa teases. 

 

“Oh, he beautiful huh?” Erik says, smiling, hands finding T’Challa’s waist and pulling him closer. 

 

He leans forward and nuzzles T’Challa’s chin, places a light kiss on his jaw. He feels T’Challa’s hands stroke up his arms and over his shoulders, it is both comforting and arousing - all of it is overwhelming.  

 

“I’mma hadouken his big, brooding ass back up that mountain. He rude as hell too...” He says breathlessly.

 

T’Challa snorts against Erik’s hair, smiling. He places a feathery kiss to his temple as one of those broad palms cup his nape, warm.

 

Without thinking Erik sinks back into that warmth. Neck bared and supine.  Some conscious part of himself forces his eyes to stay open. Swooning under this this man's touch wouldn't do for his pride. Instead he fixes T’Challa with a feverish, hooded gaze.

 

He should hate this. Shouldn’t he? How did they get here from the way they needled each other. Well, if he were to be honest, he did most of the antagonizing; he was the one who found himself irritated by wanting something from T’Challa but not knowing how to get it. 

 

He should hate the tenderness in those too-pretty eyes, the unnatural strength of the hands petting him, the way his heart seemed desperate to beat in tandem with his. 

 

“We doin’ this?” He whispers, eyes trawling over T’Challa’s face, lingering on his generous mouth. He’s giving them both the option to recoil, to rest oblique to each other. T’Challa’s face is open though, no artifice or malice, no sneer or scorn, all he can read there is curiousity and desire. 

 

“I would like to.” He says, long fingers stroking lightly down the column of Erik’s bared neck.  

 

“What do you want, Erik?”

 

There’s that question again. Erik feels his skin heat up, flushing under T’Challa’s fingertips. He swallows, lips parting to exhale an over warm breath that was trapped in his chest. He feels the overwhelming urge to suck T’Challa’s breath into his body return. He wants all of him; his essence, his light, his darkness, his desires and fears. He wants the physical manifestation of the tenderness he sees in those eyes, he wants the formidable king to dominate him, gentle him. 

 

Erik surges forward with no further deliberation; hands coming up to cup T’Challa’s face. He pulls T’Challa in closer, crossing his feet behind T’Challa’s legs to keep him there. 

 

“I want this.”

 

He whispers against T’Challa’s mouth, touch light, but the potency of his desire undeniable. Erik doesn’t care that his breath hitches around his words, doesn’t care that his vision is starting to go fuzzy around the edges; focus narrowed to only T’Challa’s eyes and mouth. He hears his words over his pulse roaring in his ears.

 

“I want you.”

**Author's Note:**

> *Yam Yegolide | Xhosa - My Golden One 
> 
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> *I paint things for a living. Watercoloring people is a joy (:


End file.
